Episode 106 - Rustling along the Amatolas in 1830 and Dingane’s black liver

History of South Africa podcast

So here we are - 1830.
Maqoma had been ejected from his beloved region below the Amatola mountains of the Eastern Cape, to be replaced by the new Khoekhoe dominated Kat River Settlement - a buffer zone for a buffer zone.
It was a time of punitive patrols sent forth by the British to search for rustled cattle, across the Fish River, into amaXhosa territory. Known as the Patrol System, or the Reprisal System, based on the Spoor Law these all described a process where patrols would follow the tracks of stolen cattle. The military patrols were a combination of the British and Khoekhoe cavalry which would seize the same number of cows stolen from settlers farms from the first amaXhosa settlement they came across.
Whether the people living within were guilty or not. The authorities supposition was that it was impossible that the people living in the kraal to be unaware as the rustled animals were led past their homes - so they were treated as accessories.
The Kat River Settlement had not ended the turbulence along the frontier, because this reprisal system increased tension. The British believed they had no other choice because of the amaXhosa’s intransigence about the frontier, the 1820 settlers distrusted both the British officials and the amaXhosa, and the Khoekhoe.
As I’ve mentioned, a frontier is a zone of intersection of cultures with those presuming to be the most developed culture alienating itself from the others. By June 1831, Andries Stockenstrom was firefighting along this frontier, while his nemesis, Colonel Henry Somerset, was setting the region aflame.
Somerset began to blur the lines between a patrol and a commando which was to have repercussions for everyone on this frontier. Henry and Andries continued to quarrel about all of this - because the final sanction for any commando rested on Andries Stockenstrom’s shoulders, but Somerset had evaded this chain of command, this organogram, by bypassing Andries and appealing directly to the Governor Sir Lowry Cole. Henry was British, the Governor was British, Stockenstrom was a Swedish-Dutch Boer.
You can see where this is going.
AS I’ll explain next episode, affairs on the frontier were sinking even faster and deeper into a muddied scene of ignorance, brutality and reactive consequences as the gestures of what Noel Mostert calls “limited military minds” were to show.
But now its time to leap back on our trusty trekboer pony, and ride to Port Natal where the traders were learning to deal with the new Zulu king, Dingane.
The first traders who met Dingane were afraid of him. He had piercing eyes, keen and quick, nothing escaped him it appeared. Isaacs met him and said that he was quelled by the Zulu kings “piercing and penetrating eyes” which he rolled in moments of anger.
Dingane’s Zulu accent was Qwabe, he spoke in the amalala style, the one that Shaka had joked about so much, calling himself Dingane, whereas the official pronounciation amongst Zulu perfectionists was Dingana.
This is what his amantungwa purists would have said, Dingana - behind his back of course. Within a few months, the colonists were describing Dingane as weak, cruel, indolent, capricious, and even more prone to human blood than the monster Shaka.